Nutrition tends to be a tough spot for anybody when they are trying to reach fitness goals. It does not matter what the goals are or the situations of the individual. In my experience is always harder for them to focus on the nutrition part than the workout part. Nutrition for busy professionals present some unique difficulties but also some similarities to the difficulties for everybody else.
The most commonly accepted reason is that nutrition is an ongoing process throughout the day, but typically workouts occur at most once per day. In many cases, however, workouts only occur a few times per week, meaning that people are dedicating a few hours to workouts per week.
In contrast people may be dedicating hours every day to eating in one way or another. What I mean by that is they may be focused on thinking about what their nutrition goals are, planning what their meals should be, perhaps tracking what they eat, and then the actual act of making the food and eating.
This can be time consuming and mind numbing. For a lot of people, it is a source of stress and sometimes a source of extreme stress. I think the biggest problem here is that people need an approach that works for them in that it allows them to reach their goals and allows them to enjoy eating.
At Nathan DeMetz Personal Training LLC both, with my clients and with the way that I approach for myself, this is the goal.
You should not have to sacrifice enjoying food meet your goals.
Eat what you enjoy
I have worked in a one to one landscape with hundreds of clients over the years. Most of these clients have been multi year clients meaning they work with me year over year. All of them needed the folks and nutrition in one way or another to reach their goals.
With all of those clients with myself with other people around me anybody that I will work with or give advice to about nutrition in the future I believe that you would they should eat what you enjoy.
I tell you right now that I will not forego eating foods I enjoy and I would not ask you to do something that I will not do.
Whether you like steak or any kind of red meat, sweets, alcohol, junk food, or anything else that people tell you to stay away from, I'm here to tell you do not have to stay away from it.
Now there will need to be a focus on how much do you eat but it should not be something that is limited from your diet if it's something that you enjoy. In fact it may not even need to be limited depending on how much you consume now.
For example if you have a few drinks per week there's no reason you need to cut it out to reach your goals. Now if you're having a few drinks per day every day we are probably going to need to reduce that.
That is just one example but this idea can be applied to virtually anything. There is a way to have the things that you enjoy and still reach your goals. How we do that is by looking at your specific situation.
A sustainable approach to nutrition
The reason enjoying what you eat matters is that this leads to a sustainable nutrition approach for the long term. What I mean by that is it's the basic framework that you will follow regardless of the details of your nutritional approach.
For example you should be able to enjoy what you eat whether you're consuming 3000 calories, 2000 calories, eating three times per day, eating 6 ping times per day, intermittent fasting, going vegan, or any other approach.
Over your lifespan you might do all of these some of these or other things. But the underlying idea is that you should enjoy the food that you eat and that you're eating should allow you to reach your goals. This is not one or the other but instead about both.
Now I would really remiss if I did not say that there could be times of extreme dieting that could be beneficial. In competitive sports situations or for people who have extreme obesity extreme dieting may be helpful.
Extreme dieting can be done safely if approached correctly but it is certainly not for everyone. For the people who do engagement they are not doing it long term. That is they are not doing it for years at a time and it is certainly not a lifestyle.
Instead people are typically using these kinds of approaches for three months or less. Now they may engage in this different periods in their life but it will be for similarly short stretches. Between these periods will be lengths of six months or even years whether not following extreme dieting.
The non extreme dieting is what makes up the majority of any successful persons nutritional strategy. This applies to me, my clients, the athlete you see on TV, the influencers you see on social media, and everyone else.
Nutrition for your situation
As a busy professional your situation will be different from people who do not have the busy lives that you do. A lot of the clients that I work with travel on a regular basis, have business dinners, and other things that impact their eating habits.
It would be a disservice to them and to you if you're in a similar situation to ask them to follow an extreme diet that is not sustainable on the road. Instead we need to find nutrition for your situation, that is we need to find nutrition for busy people such as yourself.
Exactly what this means will vary based on your situation. For example if you travel a lot then we may need to look at commonly placed restaurants throughout the country to give you an idea of what you can easily get from these places. It may mean having you carry snacks with you or knowing what to buy from the local grocer quickies. It could be many other things as well and these are just examples.
At the end of the day this strategy has to be nutrition for your situation and nutrition for busy people. At the same time it needs to be something that allows you to enjoy the food you eat and still track towards your goals.
Conclusion
When you are developing your nutrition plan or working with somebody else to do it for you keep these things in mind. If you look at a nutrition strategy and feel like you cannot reasonably follow it and it needs to be adjusted. If your coach, dietitian, doctor, friend, family member, or other person try to force you to follow it they are not looking out for your best interests. Now there are some exceptions here especially in the situations where somebody has a health issue.
In a general sense when you were developing nutrition plan and working with somebody else to do it for you keep these things in mind. You need a nutrition plan that works through situation to allow you to enjoy food and to meet your goals.